Those damned Winter games. Due to the upcoming Winter Olympics, which will run from February 12-28, there's been a little re-jigging of next year's 2010 Oscar schedule. Rather than getting to curl up inside and watch stars frolic and applaud each other during a cold and bleak February, USA Today reports that the 82nd Annual Academy Awards ceremony will take place on March 7.

Academy spokeswoman Leslie Unger says: "It has been in February since then [2004], except for one year, in 2006, where the circumstances were the same as next year, to not coincide with the closing ceremonies of the Winter Olympics." Under this schedule, nomination ballots will hit the mail on December 28, polls will close on January 23, and nominations will be announced on February 2, which will give members an extra week to see the movies.

Does it matter? Would an extra week mean that we might get an Oscar ceremony with more accurate nominations? Doubt it. And maybe they're just passing up a big cross-promotional opportunity -- stars skiing down the slopes to accept awards, skating over ice ... at least it would make up for all the highly congratulatory talk, should it seep into next year's ceremony as well.

Does a March move really matter? Did all the changes this year make you excited for next year, regardless of the date?

The Academy Awards are known for their traditions (among many other things), and this year you may have noticed that some of those traditions were broken. Jack Nicholson wasn't sporting a pair of dark sunglasses and a devilish grin from the front row, Javier Bardem wasn't in attendance to help present the Oscar for best supporting actor and, likewise, Daniel Day-Lewis wasn't there to help present the best actor award. Granted, Oscar's tradition of the prior year's best actor and actress winners (in supporting and lead) presenting the latest award to the opposite sex was ditched in favor of a same sex group thing -- but that still shouldn't have given last year's winners an excuse not to show up. After all, both Marion Cotillard and Tilda Swinton were there.

So where was everyone? The Envelope did a little digging and were informed via a few secret sources that, originally, Jack Nicholson was asked to participate as part of a group for the best supporting actor award (and most likely be the one to speak of Ledger's Joker performance), but ducked out because he only wanted to present alone. Meanwhile, Bardem (who won best supporting actor last year for No Country for Old Men) didn't show because he was suffering from a back injury. Day-Lewis, however, had a much lamer excuse: he was tired. Not only was the best actor winner for There Will Be Blood against the group thing as well, but he was also apparently too tired from work on his new film Nine to show up and present.

Wow, so what's up with this group thing? Sure, I wasn't crazy about it, but it's a little sad when your ego is so big you demand to be on stage alone ... at the Academy Awards, no less. What do you folks think? Do these actors need to get over themselves or do they have every right to present solo?

So every year the Academy Awards does their little In Memoriam montage where they honor those who've passed throughout the year. Queen Latifah sang over the montage for this year's ceremony, which, of course, included lots but excluded a few -- most notably 'The Voice of God' himself, Don LaFontaine, who passed away back in September. LaFontaine, in case you forgot or didn't know, was an actor, producer and writer who provided voiceover for pretty much every trailer ever made (okay not that many, but he is the voice of more than 5,000 movie trailers and hundreds of thousands of television commercials, video game trailers and network promotions).

That's pretty impressive in and of itself, and more than worthy of a mention during the Oscar telecast. But wait, I'll give you one more -- LaFontaine was also the in-show announcer for the Academy Awards! YES! The guy lent his voice to the Academy Awards ceremony every year ... AND THOSE IDIOTS COULDN'T EVEN FIND THE TIME TO HONOR HIM! I haven't had the time to process this entirely since I've been quite busy for the past 24 hours, but this has to be one of their biggest snubs ever. And I don't care if the guy didn't belong to the right club or organization in order to have his work recognized by the Academy -- fact is, his voice helped sell the biggest (and smallest) movies of our time. He is (and always will be) a Hollywood legend. The Academy should be ashamed ... and since they didn't have the time, space or brains to give this guy a shout out -- we will. I will also call on other websites to do the same today.

Don LaFontaine (August 26, 1940 – September 1, 2008)



[via Film Drunk]

President Obama watched his first Academy Awards from the White House last night. Following in the footsteps of last week's well-received liveblogging of the President's first foreign trip, a White House New Media intern was invited to liveblog the event from the First Family's private quarters. The post was quickly pulled, but Cinematical obtained a partial transcript.

8:33 p.m.: First Family arrives, takes the best seats. Unidentified staffer: "Great to see a gay man hosting the Oscars." POTUS kindly corrects: "That's Hugh Jack-man, not gay man."

8:47 p.m.: Penelope Cruz wins for Best Supporting Actress. POTUS calls Spain's President Zapatero to express congratulations.

9:07 p.m.: As expected, WALL-E wins Best Animated Feature. POTUS dozes off.

9:25 p.m.: First Daughters begin giggling when vampire from Twilight appears.

9:32 p.m.: Ben Stiller's appearance concerns POTUS. "When did the Night at the Museum guy become Orthodox?"

9:43 p.m.: POTUS and First Lady confer about sending girls to bed during James Franco / Seth Rogen stoner skit.

9:51 p.m.: Hugh Jackman begins another musical number.

9:52 p.m.: POTUS sneaks into kitchen, where the staff is watching the Cleveland Cavaliers crush the Detroit Pistons. Go LeBron!

10:21 p.m.: Final: Cavs 99, Pistons 78.

10:32 p.m.: POTUS amused by Will Smith.

10:46 p.m.: Surprised and delighted by Jerry Lewis' brevity; POTUS figures Congress could learn a thing or two.

10:50 p.m.: POTUS asks, "Where's Springsteen?" Upon being notified that he was not nominated this year, POTUS heads to kitchen to watch SportsCenter during presentation of music awards, returns in time to tap his toes to "Jai Ho."

UPDATE
Hour One Live Blog
Hour Two Live Blog
Hour Three Live Blog

Sure, you can sit on your couch in boxers, alone, eating straight out of the ice cream container as visions of Penelope Cruz dance around your head -- or you can tune right into Cinematical for another fantastic, fun-filled year of Oscars live-blogging, with not one, not two, but three of our best writers going out of their way to make sure your Oscars night isn't boring.

Beginning tonight at 8pm EST, join Cinematical writers Eric D. Snider, Scott Weinberg and William Goss as they devour Hollywood's biggest night in real time as if it were an In-N-Out burger with all the fixin's. Can't watch the show? Wanna know who's winning what award as it happens? We've got you covered. (And while I may be a bit biased because I work with these guys every day, trust me when I say they are three of the most entertaining dudes I've ever met.)

Since we still have some time before the show, make sure you scroll through all our Oscar-related coverage from this past week. There's also plenty of extra fun to be had over at Moviefone's Oscars hub, as well as indieWIRE's awards hub.

8pm EST. Be here. The first 100 commenters get a free lifetime achievement award from the Academy ... but don't tell them we told you that.

UPDATE: We're now live with the first hour of live blogging!

Millions of people will gather together with friends and/or strangers to watch the Academy Awards on Sunday night. It's a way to celebrate the movies we love, mock the movies we hate, argue good-naturedly about our differing opinions, and quiz each other on the artistic contributions of the sound editor vs. the sound mixer.

In a crappy economic climate, though, how should Hollywood show sensitivity? "It's a delicate balance to strike in a town not known for its restraint," notes the Los Angeles Times. "Oscar parties such as the Vanity Fair bash and Madonna's annual soiree are being scaled back considerably, but certainly not canceled. (Expect to munch on mini hamburgers instead of foie gras, and don't be surprised to see recycled decor from parties past.)" Oh, dear!

Sensitive as always to ordinary movie fans, for the first time ever the Academy "is offering a free 'Oscar Party Kit' for movie fans," according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Indeed, the official Oscar Party Kit includes recipes from Wolfgang Puck, cocktail recipes, downloadable "Oscar Bingo" cards, and an "Oscar Party Shopping List," complete with video clips.

If you're rooting for Slumdog Millionaire, why not prepare authentic Indian food? Waverly Kitchens offers the WK Movie Party Pack, including spice mix, shopping list, and instructions. The site also has a playlist of this year's nominated songs.

You can ignore the economic indicators (and good taste) and go big, like the celebration pictured above. The Guardian says that folks were invited to dress up in early 20th Century costume and watch James Cameron's multi-Oscar winner Titanic while floating in rowing boats at a swimming pool in central London, "surrounded by dry ice and fake icebergs."

What are your Oscar-watching party plans? Please share in the comments section!

So long as there are movies, they will have endings, and so long as there are endings, we will have spoilers, and so long as there are spoilers, the Fine Brothers will be sure to cover the lot of 'em in a remarkably condensed span of time.

Yes, from the makers of "100 Movie Spoilers in 4 Minutes" comes all Best Picture winners (and this year's nominees) spoiled in 5! That's right, five glorious minutes of all the action, intrigue, romance, Crash-bashing and Milk-mocking one could possibly ask for -- and yet again, clothing is optional. (Even Meg Ryan's back in the mix!) And if you think Hitchcock didn't want late moviegoers to know the ending of his films, it's a good thing he didn't see these videos.

I admittedly went with some selective muting when watching the earlier portion (sorry if we haven't all seen How Green Was My Valley), but the provided trivia up top and take-offs later on were welcome still. Kudos, you brothers from an entirely different mother I don't hardly know myself, for keeping even the spoiler-wary entertained.

Once you realize that Academy Awards and quality correlate only sporadically, the only reason to watch is the hope of seeing something surprising or controversial. People slagged last year's weird Pilobolus shadow-puppet interludes, but what the hell: at least it was something I hadn't seen before. Seeing as how a lot of the substantive results seem like even more of a foregone conclusion than usual this year, there's even less motivation to watch. So here are seven pleasant surprises I'll watch for on Sunday in the hopes of keeping entertained.

1. The ceremony comes in at three hours or less. It hasn't happened in the modern era; the shortest ceremony since 1996 happened in 2005 -- the year of Million Dollar Baby -- and it ran three hours and fourteen minutes. Last year's festivities took 3:21. Look, I'm generally skeptical of accusations that the Oscars are "self-indulgent": it's an awards show put on by the industry for the industry. Of course they're self-indulgent. They're also boring, which seems to me the more relevant accusation. Ratings have been steadily declining, with last year an all time low. Shorter and snappier please. That they've offended Peter Gabriel by asking him to trim his nominated song performance to 65 seconds for the show seems, I hate to say it, like a step in the right direction.

What does the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have against music? First they only nominated three songs instead of five in the Best Original Song category -- omitting such obviously worthy choices as Bruce Springsteen's title number from The Wrestler -- and now they're drastically reducing the amount of time those three songs will get during the Oscar telecast. And Peter Gabriel won't stand for it!

Nikki Finke at Deadline Hollywood Daily is reporting that Gabriel, who co-wrote and sang "Down to Earth" in WALL-E, has backed out of the ceremony after the show's producers allotted him only 65 seconds to sing an abbreviated version of the song. Finke says the Oscar-runners have crammed all three tunes into a medley -- easy to do, since two of them are from the same movie, Slumdog Millionaire, and sound a lot alike anyway -- with each one getting somewhere between a minute and a minute and a half. Gabriel said no dice, and wrote a letter to the AMPAS telling them so -- an epistolary sledgehammer, if you will.

"I don't feel that is sufficient time to do the song justice, and I have decided to withdraw from performing," he wrote. "I fully respect and look forward to the producers' right to revamp the show. Even though song writers are small players in the filmmaking process, they are just as committed and work just as hard as the rest of the team, and I regret that this new version of the ceremony is being created in part at their expense."

How do you spice up the Academy Awards this year? How about adding more Judd Apatow! That's exactly what show organizers plan to do for the Oscar telecast on February 22, as the director of films like Knocked Up, The 40 Year Old Virgin and this summer's Funny People has created a brand new short film to debut during the ceremony along with "fresh live material on stage." While we don't yet know what the film will be about, apparently "filmmakers of all stripes will participate" and it will air during a special tribute to comedy.

Apatow isn't the only one producing fresh content for this year's Oscars; last week we were informed that Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge!, Australia) would be creating a production number featuring show host Hugh Jackman, and Capote director Bennett Miller is tossing his own film sequence into the yay basket. We kid, of course, but if they want to get this show back on track, a good place to start would be by bringing a bunch of talented filmmakers together to create ... fun content. Stuff to entertain us in between having to watch multi-millionaires accept gold statues while thanking their agents and managers and dog nannies.

What do you think: Does Apatow's involvement make you want to watch the ceremony just a tiny bit more?

[via USA Today]